Billiards-type table games date to at least as early as the court of King Louis XI of
France when the King simply had a section of lawn brought indoors and placed on a large, otherwise everyday table. Soon after, as the popularity of cue sports increased, cloth-covered tables specifically manufactured for billiards-type games were developed comprising wooden beds bounded by rails lined with cloth covered cushions of straw or felt. By the nineteenth century, high quality billiards-type tables with cloth covered slate beds and vulcanized rubber cushions were available, giving early rise to the specialty billiards industry much as it exists still today with custom manufacturers producing high quality made-to-order tables alongside large manufacturers producing tables in mass.
As with any popular recreational activity, the early game of billiards has evolved into a wide variety of cue sports, including among others the games of pool and snooker, which utilize pockets arranged for collecting balls during play—resulting in pool sometimes being referred to as pocket billiards, and carom billiards, which include games played on tables without pockets. In addition to the differences with respect to pockets, it is also noted that tables manufactured for particular use with each of these various games will often differ in dimension, variations in dimension likewise being common even as between tables for one game. For example, it is commonplace that pool tables, while generally always being proportioned in a 2:1 rectangular shape, may be found in lengths of nine, seven or even five feet. As used herein, however, the term “billiard table” is expressly defined as meaning all tables for the play of billiards-type games, specifically including billiards, pool, snooker and all manner of carom billiards, a “billiard table,” as such term is used herein, being characterized as a table with a top surface comprising a substantially flat bed bounded by elastic cushions affixed to the inner sides of rails provided about the perimeter of the bed.
While billiard tables may take any of a wide variety of sizes and shapes, at least two constants generally prevail. First, acquisition of a quality billiard table generally requires a significant financial investment. Second, the acquisition of a billiard table requires a significant allocation of space in order to not only house the table, but also to allow appropriate room about the table for comfortable play of the game. Furthermore, because a billiard table of any reasonable quality is generally quite heavy in weight, it is generally impractical to move the table from the edge of a room to the center just for play. Even were this not the case, however, it is noted that because the play of billiards-type games generally requires a very level playing surface, any such movement would also necessitate leveling of the table once in place, an activity sure to dampen the pleasure of use. As a result, the required allocation of space, made upon substantial financial investment, is generally to the longstanding, if not permanent, exclusion of other recreational amusements as may otherwise have been had.
One such recreational amusement, the acquisition of which is often precluded by the prior purchase and placement of a billiard table, is a shuffleboard table. Often as expensive as a quality billiard table, a typical traditional shuffleboard table measures nearly two feet wide and ranges anywhere from nine to 22 feet in length. To be sure, the size requirement for a shuffleboard table is so great that a variant of the game has recently become popular in which a puck is launched across the table's surface from a first end and rebounded from an elastic curb fitted to the opposite, second end in an attempt to return to puck to the scoring area in the first end. While this manner of modified play reduces the length of the shuffleboard table, it generally also requires a widening of the table. As a result, even the modified shuffleboard table generally requires about the same amount of space as does a billiard table and, like and for the same reasons as with a billiard table, is also preferably permanently placed.
With the foregoing limitations of the prior art clearly in mind, it is an overriding object of the present invention to improve over the prior art by providing a method and apparatus by which the required investment of financial capital and allocation of space for the acquisition of a billiard table may be further recouped by enabling the billiard table to be utilized for the play of a non-billiards type game. More particularly, it is an object of the present invention to improve over the prior art by providing a shuffleboard accessory for use with a billiard table such that in combination with the existing features of the billiard table the shuffleboard accessory produces a recreational amusement adapted for the play of a table shuffleboard game.
Additionally, it is an object of the present invention to provide such a method and apparatus as also may include features for the protection of the billiard table in connection with which the shuffleboard accessory is utilized. Still further, it is an object of the present invention to provide such a method and apparatus that is reasonably compactly and therefor readily storable such that the shuffleboard accessory may be acquired and utilized notwithstanding that substantial space may already have been allocated to the placement of a billiard table. Finally, it is an object of the present invention to provide such a method and apparatus as also is economical to manufacture, thereby ensuring that the shuffleboard accessory is made as widely available as is possible.